Part 15

“I’se just imitatin’ a chicken clackin’. (Tuck-tuck, tuck, tuck awah’)--hear dat? Folks says I’se de bes’ natural bo’n animal imetator in de--(Tuck, tuck, a wack.) Some folks say it’s a gift to imetate an animal so natural. Folks say I imetate better than the animal itself.--(Tuck, tuck a wack.)”

“I think if you unbuttoned your coat you could give a much better imitation.”

“No, _sah_! I must have it tight around my abdomen to get de true, natural soun’. (Tuck, a, luck.)”

The darky’s coat was agitated by the struggling hen, a button popped off and the bird suddenly thrust its head into view. Rastus slowly scratched his head.

“Now whare do you t’ink dat come from? I _thought_ I was givin’ an onusually fine impersonation.”

Everyone laughed.

“They’re awfully funny, those coons,” said the young man. “You-all ought to see them jigging in the moonlight, playing on their banjos and dancing, all impromptu. It beats any minstrel show you-all ever saw. And they have beautiful voices. But they will lie and steal.”

He became serious.

“Of course, every race has its good sides, but the nigger has got to go, or else there won’t be any white America. In the meantime, he’s got to be kept in his place. He’s got to learn to respect the white man. Why, I read just the other day where they’re four million mulattoes in this country.”

“Well,” remarked the advertising man, dryly, “you know where they come from.”

He winked at the other Northerners, with a slight feeling of belonging to a superior group.

“What d’ye mean?”

“Well, the mulattoes come from either black mothers or white mothers. Therefore--”

The young Southerner grew very red.

“Sir, do you mean to insinuate that any white woman of the South--”

“Certainly not. I must say that I found the standards of morality in the South higher even than in Chicago or in the little Northern village where I was born. No, sir, the mulattoes are born in the South of black mothers. They are born among the purest, highest type of Anglo-Saxon manhood, upholding its traditions of race, religion and womanhood. I haven’t the least idea who their fathers are.”

The young man’s eyes blazed. Hamilton felt himself growing angry, but before he could say anything, the young man had half risen and was striking his palm excitedly with his fist.

“Sir,” he was crying, “you’ve made an insinuation against an entire class.”

He sputtered, he became unintelligible. He was going to make the other man eat his words. He denied that any respectable Southerner had ever begotten a mulatto child. Poor whites, perhaps. White trash! A white gentleman would never touch a colored woman.

“Well,” said the advertising man, with the least bit of a twinkle, “I hadn’t the least idea that I was insulting you. But what is your idea of the phenomenon?”

The youth glowered. The choleric old gentleman thrust in his oar.

“Why! Why! I observed that it was quite common for young gentlemen to ‘touch’ black women. In fact, I got the idea that it was one of your Southern traditions. Why, look here, young man, I’ve talked to twenty overseers if I’ve talked to one, and they all told me the same thing. They certainly extended true Southern hospitality to me.” He went into details. “Why, damn it, they admitted doing it themselves, not with any feeling of making a confession, either. One overseer said he always went to another plantation so as not to spoil the morale of his help!

“Now, I don’t give a whoop what you do. Black, brown, red. It’s none of my business. But what I do hate is this damn hypocrisy, all this bunk about your splendid manhood and high morality. Doggone it, I’ll bet you can’t show me a single white man south of the Mason-Dixon line--”

The young man flung his cigarette on the floor and walked out of the smoking car, muttering that if the Northerner weren’t old enough to be his grandfather he’d mop the car up with him.

Hamilton rose. “Here’s one, right here!” he said, looking the choleric gentleman in the eye.

“An exception, all right. But without getting mad about it and without putting on a high and mighty pose, tell me truthfully, aren’t you an exception? Take your own set!”

Hamilton wavered. The standards in Corinth had not been very high. Perhaps the set he knew was not a fair group. In general, it had not been considered particularly immoral. It had been the attitude of Greek or Roman gentlemen to their slaves.

“Well,” he said, “perhaps the white man is to blame. To be frank, I guess we are. Yes, it is a serious situation, and that’s exactly what we must combat.” He wished that the Jewish drummer were out of the car. It was a fine opening to talk Tribe. He could tell what the Tribe was going to do to raise moral standards and prevent the mingling of white blood with black by rigid enforcement of the code. Why were Jews excluded from membership, anyway?

The old Southerner coughed.

“I haven’t taken any part in your little argument, yet,” he said, stroking his long white beard, “for I reckon that’s something for younger and fightinger folks. But they say: Young men for fightin’ and old men for counsel. I sort o’ figgered that you fellows was sort of teasing this youngster that got mad.”

“Sure, that’s all I was doing, dad, having a little fun with him,” said the ad man. “Have a cigar?”

“No, thanks. Had enough. Too much tobacco bad for my heart. I sort-a liked the spunk o’ that young fella at that. Although nobody would a got mad at a thing like that in my day. But he’s right and you, too, young man. The nigger problem is a coming one. It’s been under cover for many years, but it’ll bob up again, sure as you’re born. Now, you might not know it, but I fit with the boys in gray; ’listed in ’65. I was a youngster, but I got in. I got a wound in my right thigh by a Yank musketball, I can show you, in the last engagement of the war--but I’ve no feelings against the North for that. Not any more. No, the South has forgotten the war. We’re all one country now.”

He went into a circumlocutory account of his experiences in the Civil War, of his home-coming and of the first post bellum days, while the rest listened respectfully and asked questions from time to time to show that they were still interested.

“You’re wondering where all this is leading to, well, you were talking about the nigger problem. But I saw a real nigger problem, compared to which this one isn’t a hill o’ beans. No, sir, not a hill o’ beans. Although this one may get to be like it. But we had a real problem.”

It was after the war. The Southern States had been compelled reluctantly, not merely to liberate, but to enfranchise the Negroes. Yankee carpetbaggers had descended from the North, both to invest money in enterprises and real estate that could be bought for a song and to obtain political control.

“Well, I lived in Tennessee, little town of Pulaski. When we got back, a few of us young bucks got together one May day in 1866, and formed a secret society, just for the dickens of it. I don’t know if you ever heard of it--”

“You don’t mean them Ku Kluxers?” broke in the Jewish drummer.

“That’s right!” exclaimed the old gentleman joyously. “How did you know? Knights of the Ku Klux Klan we called ourselves. Kuklux was a Latin word, meaning circle, and one of the boys who’d been to college thought it’d be appropriate.”

“Oh, ‘kuklos’! That’s Greek for circle,” said Hamilton.

“Oh, everyone has heard of the Ku Klux Klan,” put in the advertising man. “We even read about it in our histories, dad.”

“Well, that’s the same Klan, and I was one of the first members. Well, our first object was just to have a little fun, a little mystery to keep the other folks guessing. Then, by accident, someone discovered that if you wanted to scare a nigger into doing what you wanted him to do, all you had to do was to dress up in a sheet like a ghost.

“We scared a few bad niggers. You should have seen our rigs. White masks, high cardboard hats, long white robes. And we had a white cover for our horses and padded their feet. The best fun, of course, was the initiations. But that’s all secret.” He chuckled at the memory.

“Soon other Klans were started around Pulaski. By an’ by Tennessee, and then the entire South was covered with them. So by the time the reconstruction acts o’ ’67 were passed, we had a right smart of a military organization. Why, sir, the niggers, the old slaves, were in the state militia and we had to walk between rows of their bayonets to get at the voting polls. They and the Northern carpetbaggers stuffed the ballot boxes and won over the state and city government. And there were a few scalawags from the South that joined ’em. We had organized just for fun. But as soon as the niggers and carpetbaggers began making our laws and robbin’ the public treasury, the Klan spread like wildfire over the entire South. And like organizations were also formed. Knights of the White Camellia was one, Pale Faces, White Leaguers.”

“Trick Track Tribe,” suggested Hamilton.

“Yes, that was one of ’em. But they all had one purpose--to uphold the supremacy of the white race.”

“Well, you made a good job of it,” said someone. The old gentleman was getting winded.

“Yes, we did. Tar and feathers. Public hangings. A few judicious notes o’ warnin’. We put the fear o’ God and respect for law and order in their souls. It might not of been strictly ethical, but it worked in its day, and if ever the niggers start kickin’ up a rumpus, the same thing can be used against ’em again.”

The Jewish drummer took out another cigar and cut off the end with a little gold cigar-cutter attached to a chain and Robert knew that he would have to bide his time. The old gentleman’s words had given him moral confirmation. Not that he needed it, exactly, but it established the Tribe as of honorable tradition, an institution of which any Southerner could be proud. He wished that the Jewish drummer would go, or at least that he would get a chance to talk to the old Klansman alone. When the latter, therefore, excused himself to return to his seat because the smoke was getting too thick for his lungs, Robert followed him.

“I was interested in what you said about the Trick Track Tribe,” he said, falling into the seat opposite him.

“That’s because you’re a Southerner. Every loyal Southerner is.”

“Perhaps you’ll be glad to know that we--that the Tribe is being revived.”

“Revived? Well, well, well. But you know it was run out of business by the law, the whole shooting match of ’em--Klan, Tribe and all, by Congress.”

“No, I didn’t know that. Let’s see! There was something like that in our American history. Let’s see, the Force bill.”

“Sure thing. The damn Yankee general, Grant, done it. So I wouldn’t say much about it. I suppose it’s still illegal.”

“Oh, no, this has been reorganized and incorporated, although it’s got the same name and the same traditions. Here, let me show you some of our cards.”

The old Confederate soldier puzzled over the Latin motto and demanded why all those questions were being asked.

“We didn’t ask all them questions about religion and where a man was born. An’ what’s this card?”

It was a card the size of a playing card, headed “Do You Know?” and containing a list of “that’s”:

_That the Pope is a political autocrat._

_That a secret treaty made by him started the war._

_That he is enthroned and crowned and makes treaties and sends and receives ambassadors._

_That 116 princes of his government are enthroned in our cities._

_That he has courts here enforcing the canon law._

_That he controls the daily and magazine press._

_That he denounces popular government as inherently vicious._

_That his canon law condemns public schools and forbids children to attend them._

_That popery enthroned in great cities controls politics._

_That our war industries were placed exclusively in Roman Catholic hands._

_That no sectarian body or fraternal order but Knights of Columbus were permitted to do war relief work in the army and navy._

_That Roman Catholics compose one-sixth of the population and hold three-fourths of the public offices, being entrenched in national, state and city governments throughout the country._

_That they are pouring into our land as immigrants at the rate of two millions a year._

_That Knights of Columbus declare they will make popery dominant in the United States._

_Let us arouse the people and save our country as the beacon light of constitutional liberty and the hope of the world._

The old soldier scowled.

“D’you take me fer a fool, young feller? And what’s this other card there, some more anti-Catholic stuff, eh? What in the devil has this rigmarole got to do with the old Tribe or the Klan or with any of those other organizations? How d’you know _I’m_ not a Catholic?”

“I thought because you belonged to the Ku Klux Klan you couldn’t be. I thought Jews and Catholics were barred.”

“Jews. Catholics barred.” His eyes blazed and he shook his fist. “Now where do you get that? I want you to know that some of the finest soldiers among the boys in gray was Irish Catholics. A lot of the officers, too. And don’t you know that a Jew, Judah P. Benjamin, was secretary of war of the Confederate States? And the Pope of Rome was the only power that recognized our president and government? You’re a fine Southerner! No, we didn’t discriminate because of religion. Didn’t you hear me tell you that we had just come back from the Civil War and that we all united to save the South from ignorant, licentious niggers and from crooked Yank carpetbaggers and our own Southern scalawags? There wasn’t any question of Catholics or Protestants or Jews in the old Tribe. There wasn’t any question of Catholic or Jew in the Ku Klux Klan. I’m not a Catholic, but if you’re a friend of the old Tribe or the old Ku Klux Klan don’t show me any more of that stuff.”

Robert put his cards back in embarrassment. The old gentleman kept mumbling “Catholic, Jews, Klan” under his breath.

“Oh, of course,” began Robert, “our chief purpose is to preserve the white race--”

“Preserve! You mean pickle it! Kill it and pickle it in embalming fluid! So you’re going to preserve it by splitting it up. In ’67 we tried to preserve it from the unruly blacks and the renegade whites. If you’d been there, young man, you’d of known how important it was to have the best of the white element united--instead of dividing it along religious lines.”

Robert attempted to point out the need of having a homogeneous organization of native-born, white Protestants to carry on these ideals, but the old man swore that “there had been Protestant, white-born native sons of Belial among the scalawags.”

“There’s no race or creed that’s got a monopoly on all the scoundrels. And I notice you slipped in a new one about native-born. That, sir, is an insult! I’m Scotch born! Came over as a boy of six--but that excludes me, too, me a member of the first Klan. Why, Jesus Christ himself couldn’t have gotten into your Tribe, according to the revised rules, because: First, he was a foreigner, and, second, because he was a Jew.”

Robert was becoming angry. If he wasn’t so old a man and so vehement, one could argue with him, but when Robert thought of something to say, he interrupted. He had been more than picturesquely profane. He had been positively sacrilegious. It would have been a feather in Robert’s hat to have obtained the membership of one of the founders of the Ku Klux Klan--but he wasn’t eligible, anyway. He had never known the Scotch to be so vehement. He talked like an excited Irishman. Robert would not tolerate it any more. He got up and walked back to the smoking car.

XXIX

Robert went over his propaganda material. There was no time to read all of it carefully, but enough to give him a clearer idea of the Tribe’s purpose and to present, in more clear-cut fashion, arguments for joining it. Its objects had not appeared very plain. At the initiation, in Griffith’s office, in talking with Lister, there seemed to be a simple enough mission--Americanism, supremacy of the white race, the maintenance of law and order, the avoidance of unnecessary strikes, the protection of womanhood. Yes, undoubtedly all this was a glorious task. But when one came to analyze these general propositions their meaning became vaguer. It was like founding a society to uphold the Constitution. In 1787, before it was certain whether a nationalistic sentiment would crystallize, there might be some meaning in founding such a society. But no one would think of forming such an association now. And then Robert remembered that upholding the Constitution was part of the Tribe’s creed. It was like establishing an organization to uphold the foundation of our government. It was like forming a government--only a secret government--within a government.

Once, in his senior year at prep school, Robert had attempted to become a debater. He joined a debating society and was assigned to a team which was defending the merits of a certain plank in the platform of the Bull Moose party against a similar plank of the Democratic party platform. He had entered the preparation of the arguments full of enthusiasm. The Progressive platform was so much broader, so much more constructive. Then, on the night of the debate, his enthusiasm had suddenly vanished. He had forgotten his arguments, or rather they seemed petty. Each party was trying to solve the same problem. There was merely a slight difference in the phrasing. Each party had tried to word it as broadly as possible without committing itself too definitely. Robert had rattled off the words he had memorized, sat down in confusion for a moment and then walked out without waiting for the verdict, which was, of course, against him. That had ended his career as a debater. He had long forgotten what the plank was--the handling of the trust problem, relations between labor and capital, or what; but the sense of mortification, mingled with one of his superiority to persons who spent their time in trying to prove things, remained.

The Tribe, he knew, was definitely opposed to the entry of the Knights of Columbus in politics. Fair enough. He was happy to be in that fight. But some of the questions on the “Do You Know That” card seemed to be beside the mark. They aimed at Catholics en masse, just like the debaters at prep school had aimed questions and set traps for their opponents, not to clarify the issue, but to win. Granted that no religious organization ought to enter American politics, why denounce the Catholics because the Pope is enthroned and crowned, sends and receives ambassadors and has 116 “princes” (bishops and higher ecclesiastical officers presumably), in the United States? That was begging the question. That was accusing the Catholics of being Catholics, condemning them because of the organization of their church. There was no proof that the 116 papal princes had the remotest connection with American politics. The suggestion was conveyed, of course, by innuendo. Then there was a statement that the Knights of Columbus had been the only sectarian or fraternal body permitted to do war relief work in the army and navy. That was a plain mis-statement. Any soldier knew better than that. There were the Y. M. C. A. and Salvation Army. And didn’t the Jews and the Lutherans have some sort of organization? Yes, he was sure of it. If the Y. M. C. A. and the Salvation Army were not considered sectarian or fraternal organizations, then that was only getting back to a debating society quibble on words. Well, when he got to Chicago, he would talk it over with the man in charge of the Dearborn Statistical Bureau. Together they would work out a better, yes, a fairer, set of cards and circulars, some that actually pointed out the menace of the Knights of Columbus in politics.

So far Robert had been fairly successful. At least five of his fellow passengers had expressed a desire to join. He had their names and addresses and would have cards sent to them, one every week or so, so that it would not seem that they were being rushed. One of the converts had handed Robert a copy of a violently anti-Catholic publication with a chuckle.

“Want to read something good?”

It was an account of how a Catholic priest had been accused of intimate relations with a young girl who had come to confess to him. The man winked and gleefully expressed his indignation. His little dark eyes sparkled.

“They ought to all be wiped out root and stem,” he said vehemently. “They’re all alike, with their round faces and their fat stomachs. Every one. A bunch of hypocrites, under the rule of an Eye-talian pot-entate, taxing the people and living on the fat of the land. Why, it’s a well-known fact that every priest has a cellar full of wine and that they get drunk every night.”

He recited other “facts” and then appealed to history. He had just read in a previous issue of the same publication of the Spanish Inquisition.

“If they had the same power now they’d hold an inquisition right here,” he declared. “They’re an intolerant lot and if I had my way I’d make every one swear he wasn’t a Catholic and those who wouldn’t swear, I’d hang.”

The defender of tolerance gleefully read the card Hamilton handed him.

“Every word of that is true,” he repeated after every statement. “Yes, sir, every word. Yes, sir, we demand separation of church and state?”

For a moment the phrase “separation of church and state” struck Hamilton as an odd anachronism--it was as though he had demanded “no taxation without representation”--and then he remembered that that was one of the purposes of the Tribe as outlined on the card. States’ rights was another one of the planks with a musty flavor--it went back also to the Constitutional Convention, to gentlemen in knee breeches and wigs ardently debating how much of the power of the sovereign states was to be delegated to the Confederation itself.

But the tolerant gentleman who wished to hang all Catholics waxed enthusiastic over these demands and Hamilton encouraged him.